First Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Began - Couverture souple

Deamer, David; Roth, Carol Susan

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0520274458 ISBN 13 : 9780520274457

Editeur : University of California Press, 2012

Synopsis

This pathbreaking book explores how life can begin, taking us from cosmic clouds of stardust, to volcanoes on Earth, to the modern chemistry laboratory. Seeking to understand life's connection to the stars, David Deamer introduces astrobiology, a new scientific discipline that studies the origin and evolution of life on Earth and relates it to the birth and death of stars, planet formation, interfaces between minerals, water, and atmosphere, and the physics and chemistry of carbon compounds. Deamer argues that life began as systems of molecules that assembled into membrane-bound packages. These in turn provided an essential compartment in which more complex molecules assumed new functions required for the origin of life and the beginning of evolution. Deamer takes us from the vivid and unpromising chaos of the Earth four billion years ago up to the present and his own laboratory, where he contemplates the prospects for generating synthetic life. Engaging and accessible, First Life describes the scientific story of astrobiology while presenting a fascinating hypothesis to explain the origin of life.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

David Deamer is Research Professor in the Department of Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has written and edited many books, including The Origins of Life (with Jack Szostak).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of California Press
• Date d'édition: 2012
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0520274458
• ISBN 13: 9780520274457
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 282
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible